“Wear the Gown” is THV11’s not so subtle way of telling everyone to see your doctor regularly

Author:
Laura Monteverdi , KTHV

Published:10/02/17

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV)— “Wear the Gown” is THV11’s not so subtle way of telling everyone to see your doctor regularly.

Some of us put it off because let's face it, between the appointment, the tests and the medications, seeing your doctor can be expensive. But it doesn't have to be.

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If you asked Michelle Daniels Stewart 10 years ago if she could afford to go the doctor, she would have told you no.

“I was self-employed and I didn't have any insurance,” Stewart said.

That is until she found out about CHI St. Vincent Health Clinic East, a clinic that works with uninsured, underinsured and low-Income patients to provide them with affordable dental and health care.

“St. Vincent’s works with income challenged people and at the time I was.”

And it's a good thing she found this place. A few years after she turned 40, Michelle signed up for the clinic's free mammogram bus. And it was then that her doctor discovered a lump.

“I was scared. I was really scared when I got the results. But Dr. Ganga talked me through it. Reassured me and said we are here for you. We are going to go thru this with you and fortunately everything turned out ok.”

Fortunately, the lump turned out to be benign but it was a wake-up call for Michelle.

She has mammograms more often and never misses an appointment out of fear it will be too expensive.

“I think there are a lot of people in the community that still don't know how much they need to pay to see a physician and they don't even know there are clinics like our clinics who can really see the patients just for a twenty dollar visit which is really reasonable,” said Dr. Vyjayanthi Ganga.

And Michelle knows that now, and knows the highest cost may not seeking care at all.

“If I hadn't had the mammogram I would have never known the results could have been different.”

The East Clinic is located on East 6th Street in Little Rock. It offers a sliding-fee scale where services are based on an individual's ability to pay.